An overwhelming majority of Canadians say Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should slash the federal budget to balance the books, according to a new poll for Canwest News Service and Global National.

OTTAWA - An overwhelming majority of Canadians say Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should slash the federal budget to balance the books, according to a new poll for Canwest News Service and Global National.

Only a handful say Flaherty should raise taxes to meet any shortfalls as government revenues shrink because of the slowing economy. And just 43 per cent of those surveyed by Ipsos Reid say it's all right with them if Flaherty decided to run a budget deficit to get the country through a rough economic patch.

John Wright, Ipsos Reid's senior vice-president, said his firm's polling data on consumer confidence and job anxiety indicate that Canadians are not yet seized with any urgency about the economy and do not feel that the economic slowdown has turned into a crisis requiring extreme measures.

"I think there's a disconnect where people are saying it might get really bad but it's not bad now and I don't think it'll hurt me," Wright said. "Which means that, so far as the checklist in how they see government proceeding on this front, we haven't reached the point where, yes, it's ok to do deficits. They're saying your checklist is to make sure there's no fat in the system."

In an online survey conducted from Oct. 22 to Oct. 25, Ipsos Reid asked 1,012 Canadians "how supportive" they would be raising taxes, cutting spending or running a deficit.

Just two per cent said they were "very supportive" of raising taxes while 15 per cent were somewhat supportive of the idea. Everyone else polled was not supportive.

On the issue of running a deficit, 43 per cent were in favour of it to some degree while 57 per cent were opposed.

An overwhelming 82 per cent were either very or somewhat supportive of cutting government spending.

Support for a deficit was lowest in Alberta. In that province just 20 per cent support running a deficit; 14 per cent support a tax hike and 68 per cent say Flaherty should cut taxes.

Support for running a deficit was highest in Ontario and B.C. where 43 per cent and 42 per cent respectively said a deficit was all right. In Ontario, 72 per cent support spending cuts and 18 per cent support a tax hike. In B.C., 68 per cent would cut spending and 14 per cent would hike taxes.

In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 77 per cent support cuts, 31 per cent support deficits, and 15 per cent support tax hikes.

Support for tax hikes was lowest in the eastern part of the country. Just seven per cent in Atlantic Canada and nine per cent in Quebec think tax hikes are a good idea. In Quebec, where cuts to federal program that support the arts was a major election issue, 81 per cent support spending cuts and 39 per cent would run a deficit.

But even though cutting spending is the most popular choice across the country, it may be the most difficult.

The Conservatives were elected in 2006 partly on a platform of cutting government spending. Not only were they unable to cut any spending in their first three budgets, the rate of growth of spending is running much faster than the rate of inflation or the growth of the economy. The Conservatives are now spending $20 billion a year more than the Liberals did in their last budget year of 2005-06.

Spending is set to grow again next year by about $1.5-billion for things such as more front-line support for Canada's border patrol, improved student aid, and new economic development assistance for Canada's First Nations communities.

TD Bank Chief Economist Don Drummond wrote in a recent research report that if the government proceeds next year with the combination of tax cuts and spending increases that it announced in the 2008 Budget, Ottawa will run a deficit next year of at least $10 billion and will continue to run deficits, albeit increasingly smaller ones, for the next four years.

Economists and government sources say it is unlikely Flaherty can find spending cuts of $10 billion in one year in order to balance the books. For one thing, there may be too much political damage associated with massive spending cuts. Many Conservatives, after all, believe they lost their chance at a majority government partly because of anger in Quebec over just $50 million in cuts to arts programs.

The federal government will spend $201.2 billion this year, not including debt charges.

Though $10 billion is only about five per cent of that number, much of that spending cannot be cut.

For example, the government paid more than $32 billion to older Canadians for things such as Old Age Pension. No politician would risk chopping pensions or other benefits by five per cent. Transfers to other levels of government for health and social services are another hands-off item for Ottawa. Those two items totalled nearly $30 billion.

To get a sense of how much $10 billion means in annual spending, consider this:

- That's the CBC's annual budget for more than 10 years. CBC's allocation of federal tax dollars this year totals $1.04 billion.

- The departmental budget for Natural Resources Canada is a little more than $2 billion this year.

- The combined budgets of regional economic development agencies like the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and others for Quebec, the West, and northern Ontario had a combined budget this year of a little more than $1 billion.

- The combined budgets of the two main granting councils for research and science this year is about $1.5 billion.

- The Universal Child Care Benefit in which parents get $100 a month for every child under six will cost the treasury $2.5 billion this year.

- The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's business of protecting and developing Canada's housing market will cost $2 billion this year.

- Axe all of those - CBC, NRCAN, ACOA and all those agencies like it, research funding, child care benefits, and the CMHC - and you have $10 billion.

According to Ipsos Reid, statistical margins of error are not applicable to online polls because they are based on samples drawn from opt-in online panels, not on random samples that mirror the population within a statistical probability ratio.

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